You can imagine what the boys had to say about it all. And then one of them was car sick en route.
We are well into the second week of school hols down here......because we still have three terms in Tasmania. So from the birthday party in Scottsdale we went and hung out with friends on their farm outside Bridport. We went to the dairy:
It's incredible how mechanised the whole process is....you can see the cows on the carousel being milked with electronic suction teats. Yet cow's can't be toilet trained, so there is a real juxtaposition between what else comes out while they are extracting the beautiful, white, creamy milk.
From Bridport we moved onto my mum's in Launceston. Tobes saw his first peacock which until then had just been a concept in a book and on YouTube:
It was at this point that I accidentally dropped my iPhone 3 into the loo. Suddenly I was totally incommunicado. I had been excited that one day, I would be trading up to the new iPhone 5 yet my misfortune happened only a matter of days too early. The friendly lady at the Telstra shop assured me last Wednesday that it would probably be around six weeks before the new model was available.......she had me going. Never mind, the camera on my new iPhone 4s puts the old one to shame....finally I can do flash.
Next stop, Orford on the East Coast....the beach amidst rain showers and gale force winds:
Why don't children feel the cold? I was rugged up to within an inch of my life in a puffer, jeans and scarf....and you can see my husband's choice of beach footwear. Moments before this photo was taken we had narrowly missed being struck by a blown over tree.
After seven nights away we drove back up the driveway. Look at what greeted us on our arrival home:
A parcel all the way from Espondeilhan, from our wonderful friends the family Pons. Merci beaucoup! They had thought of everything that would bring the taste of the South of France to Hobart. Berlingot's from Pezenas for the children, a gorgeous Laguiole bottle opener:
And, be still my beating heart...foie gras:
I had always assumed that I would take the high moral ground on foie gras or 'fat liver' yet one taste and I was seduced......even though my conscience struggles with the way they force feed geese to make their livers grow abnormally large. So now I'm ashamed to admit that I have even tried foie gras ice cream.
Anyway, there was also a bag of candied cumquats:
Our whole family adores these and I can't say that I have ever seen these for sale in Hobart, so they've always been associated with markets in the South of France.....sigh. Seeing that I still have two trees laden with cumquats, staring at me reproachfully, I might see if I can find a recipe and try and recreate them in my kitchen here......or maybe I should just wait until I am back in a French market.
Coincidentally, we had a date that night down the road at one of our two local French Restaurants, Le Provencal:
I wore a new Marni top from the Outnet. Here I am wearing it while being hassled by Superman:
I can't tell you how much I love going to dinner at 'the Prov'. In true French style it's run by a husband and wife....she waits the tables while he is in the kitchen cooking and they live upstairs with their daughters. All that's missing to make it a truly authentic French dining experience is a dog wandering around between the table legs. Years ago, when we went for dinner when our eldest daughter was a toddler, one of the girls came down from upstairs in her pj's complete with toys and they played while we ate. It was perfect. These days though, I much prefer going out to dinner and leaving all four children at home.
This was the seafood special:
And the magret de canard avec pommes:
And I still gaze and gaze at the tromp l'oeil:
On that note, my time out is up....I'm being nagged to provide peanut butter sandwiches. Better get back out amongst it.
Rx
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